Banks should learn to work with, rather than against, the new role of money in a peer-to-peer landscape, says media theorist and author Douglas Rushkoff writes on Mashable, based on the arguments of his new book, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now.
But many libertarians* would rather bypass, not work with banks.
The hype has never been hotter for the Internet’s crypto-currency Bitcoin, Salon… read more
Academic researchers and scientists at companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard have been working to develop quantum computers.
Now, Lockheed Martin — which bought an early version of such a computer from the Canadian company D-Wave Systems two years ago — is confident enough in the technology to… read more
Researchers have deciphered the molecular structures of two of the brain’s crucial lock-and-key mechanisms, Nature News reports.
The two molecules are receptors for the natural neurotransmitter serotonin — which regulates activities such as sleep, appetite and mood — and could provide targets for future drugs to combat depression, migraines or obesity. They could also help in understanding how the physical structures of the brain produce consciousness.… read more
Under a resolution Pearce introduced on Thursday, Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) wants to create a “virtual Congress,” where lawmakers would leverage videoconferencing and other remote work technology to to hold hearings, debate and vote on legislation virtually from their home district offices, The Hill reports.
Pearce says the resolution would eradicate the need for members to jet back and forth from their districts to Washington each weekend. This… read more
Technology can turn our entire lives into learning experiences via “socialstructed learning,” an aggregation of microlearning experiences drawn from a rich ecology of content and driven not by grades but by social and intrinsic rewards, suggests Marina Gorbis, Executive Director at the Institute for the Future, in Fast Company.
“Today’s obsession with MOOCs is a reminder of the old forecasting paradigm: In the early stages of technology… read more
“Neuroscience — one of the greatest challenges facing science and engineering — is at a crossroads. …There exist few general theories or principles that explain brain function [due partly to] limitations in current methodologies,” say neuroscientists in a new ACS Nano open-access paper, “Nanotools for Neuroscience and Brain Activity Mapping.”
Traditional neurophysiological approaches record the activities of one neuron or a few neurons at a time. Neurochemical… read more
Meet FastRunner, a bioinspired robot that thinks it’s an ostrich, being built at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. It’s expected to be the world’s fastest robotic biped, at 22 mph.
Impressive, but no Boston Dynamics Cheetah, at 28.3 mph (on a treadmill) — beating out Usain Bolt’s 27.79 mph.
But FastRunner may soon negotiate more complex environments — ones that Cheetah may fear to tread, thanks to… read more
With his 2045 Initiative, Russian Internet mogul Dmitry Itskov is looking for backers for the world’s first immortality research center.
The new venture sells itself: invest in his new research and development interest and the payoff could be immortality, reports Fortune.
A new corporate entity that the Russian multi-millionaire will formally announce at an event in June will allow investors to bankroll research into neuroscience… read more
IBM has announced a materials science breakthrough at the molecular level that could pave the way for a new class of non-volatile memory and logic chips that would use less power than today’s silicon devices.
IBM’s scientists discovered a new way to power chips using tiny ionic currents, which are streams of charged molecules that can mimic the event-driven way in which the human brain operates.
Today’s computers… read more
DARPA has launched a new programming paradigm for managing uncertain information called “Probabilistic Programming for Advanced Machine Learning”(PPAML).
Machine learning — the ability of computers to understand data, manage results, and infer insights from uncertain information — is the force behind many recent revolutions in computing.
Unfortunately, every new machine-learning application requires a Herculean effort. Even a team of specially trained machine learning experts makes only… read more
The most detailed map ever created of the cosmic microwave background — the relic radiation from the Big Bang — acquired by ESA’s Planck space telescope, has been released, revealing features that challenge the foundations of our current understanding of the Universe and may require new physics.
EPFL scientists have combined two materials with advantageous electronic properties — graphene and molybdenite — into a flash memory prototype that is promising in terms of superior performance, size, flexibility and energy consumption.
An ideal “energy band”
“For our memory model, we combined the unique electronic properties of molybdenite (MoS2) with graphene’s amazing conductivity,” explains Andras Kis, author of the study and director of… read more
Our understanding of brain activity has traditionally been linked to brain areas — when we speak, the speech area of the brain is active.
New research by an international team of psychologists shows that this view may be wrong. The entire cortex, not just the area responsible for a certain function, is activated when a given task is initiated.
Furthermore, activity occurs in a pattern: waves… read more
HP researchers have developed a glasses-free, multi-directional diffractive backlight technology that allows for rendering of high-resolution, full-parallax 3D images in a zone up to 180° and up to one meter away, HP Innovation blog reports.
In other words: glasses-free 3D for your mobile device.
The display technology forms 3D images by projecting different 2D images into different regions of space. A viewer located near the display… read more
Meet Zoe: a digital talking head. She can express a range of human emotions on demand with “unprecedented realism” and could herald a new era of human-computer interaction, according to researchers at Toshiba’s Cambridge Research Lab and the University of Cambridge’s Department of Engineering, who created her.
Zoe, or her offspring, could be used as a visible version of Siri, as… read more